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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985439">Hands off</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothamsnightmares_writing/pseuds/gothamsnightmares_writing'>gothamsnightmares_writing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gotham (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Gen, Jerome as a(n over-)protective little brother, Minor Original Character(s), Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, Reader has a conflicted approach to Jerome/Jeremiah's falling out, mild verbal sexual harrassment, some canon typical violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:02:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,512</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothamsnightmares_writing/pseuds/gothamsnightmares_writing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>While working on Jerome's plan to find/get back at Jeremiah, his half-sister is being hit on by one of the random Arkham inmates that works with the Legion of Horribles. She's trying her best to ignore the harrassment, but isn't quite succesful. Luckily Jerome, who's very fond of his sister, isn't particularly thrilled about it either.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeremiah Valeska/Reader (mentioned), Jerome Valeska/Original Female Character(s), Jerome Valeska/Reader, Jerome/Jeremiah Valeska (mentioned), Reader is Jerome/Jeremiah's half-sister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hands off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was my first Gotham story I ever wrote last October, people who have read this on my blog before may have noticed that I've made a few tweaks here and there since then.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You were standing at the large table in the Legion of Horribles Headquarters, looking at a bunch of spread out plans, papers and maps, just randomly pondering over various details of your brother’s latest plan, making sure that everything was lining up well so far. Suddenly Darryl, one of the random inmates that had stayed with Jerome, Jervis and Jonathan after they broke out of Arkham to help, joined you at the table.</p><p>
  <em>Crap, here we go again.</em>
</p><p>He’d been obnoxiously trying to hit on you ever since he first saw you 3 days ago and found out, to his delight, that you were Jerome’s older sister (well <em>half</em>-sister, technically), born out of another one night stand his mother had with some random guy at the circus a few years before the twins were born. A relationship that Jerome had been keeping secret from the Gotham public eye so far, but had decided to openly embrace now in light of him finally deciding to also “reconnect” with your other little brother, Jeremiah, something he’d declared you should definitely be a part of, regardless of how you yourself actually felt about Jeremiah and the Twins‘ big falling out years ago.</p><p>Truth was, yes, you had always been really mad at Jeremiah for what he’d done to Jerome and for leaving the circus over night (something that had come out of nowhere to you as well), but, since Jeremiah had never chosen to turn on you personally when he told his stories (they were only ever about Jerome), you didn’t even know how you felt about him now. Still, he had abandoned you as well, so when Jerome had suddenly shown up on your door step a couple of days ago after escaping Arkham, and he told you he was going to finally start looking for “our dear bastard brother“, after initially insisting on staying out of it (you wanted the boys to figure this out on their own, and you weren’t particularly keen on having to see Jeremiah again completely out of the blue), Jerome, being his persistent self, kept reminding you over and over how “that little traitor“ ditched you both, so in the end, you finally agreed.</p><p>You’ve always had a hard time saying no to Jerome when he did his begging-little-brother-routine on you (<em>“Come on, sis, family reunions are always fun!</em>“), you loved your little monster of a brother, cause you were by no means innocent either, that apparent genetic desire for violence in the Valeska family was running through your blood as well. In fact, you shared many of Jerome’s wild, chaotic, fun loving murderous qualities, which is why you two easily got along so well (even though you also happened to share a lot of Jeremiah’s personality traits as well, something Jerome would occasionally tease you about).</p><p> </p><p><br/>
Meaning you’d be here to stay and very actively involved, and apparently Darryl figured that was an invitation for him to try to get into your pants whether you liked it or not. “So gorgeous, how’s it looking? Everything working out?“ he asked, failing as usual trying to seem casual. You pointedly ignored him and kept studying the papers right in front of you, something seemingly not adding up properly having just caught your attention. Your eyes, however, narrowed slightly while you were reading, and your jaw clenched, hard. <em>Why</em> wouldn’t this bastard leave you the hell alone?</p><p>He leaned on the table on his right elbow into your direction, making it increasingly harder for you to focus. Silently watching you for a moment, his eyes were roaming over your beautiful, silky, red hair, the very same fiery red shade as the twins’, currently falling loosely and a bit wavy over your right shoulder, instead of being held together in it’s usual, somewhat messy low bun. “… you know what they say about red-heads, don’t you?“ Darryl enquired, flashing you that bright, incredibly vexing smile of his that made your blood boil every time you just caught it out of the corner of your eyes, leaning even closer to you. Internally cursing yourself for deciding to let your hair down a few minutes ago, the tight bun starting to give you a bit of a headache, something he clearly figured you had done just to entice him, you angrily closed your eyes momentarily and sucked in a very annoyed breath, trying to keep any murderous impulses in check, something you were technically pretty good at, repressing your anger. It was an ability you usually shared with Jeremiah, but today… oooh, he was <em>really</em> testing your patience, this being the third time within the last half hour he’d been bothering you.</p><p>Jerome had been gone all day, trying to get more pieces of information together about the whereabouts of his elusive twin, so obviously Darryl figured that was his chance to strike again. For most of the day so far, you’d been doing relatively fine, because Oswald and Freeze both highly disapproved of some guy constantly trying to hit on the women of the Legion just because they were there, and they’d both been telling him off several times whenever he was trying to start things up with you again. Now however they were both gone, somewhere else in the mansion doing whatever, and you were left alone with him. You had been so overly bothered by this guy by now that you were seriously considering asking Tetch to solve your problem with hypnosis or beg Crane to scare him away from you or better yet, just let Bridgit set his annoying ass on fire, but all 3 of them were currently off with your brother. Every time he left and you thought you’d finally be able to catch a break from him, he waltzed right back in again. Your gloved fingers now started to clench on the table, and, looking up at the ceiling, you let out a shaky, annoyed sigh, slowly starting to realize you couldn’t keep your murderous impulses down for much longer, you were starting to twitch with anger and the desire to finally just gut him. You forced yourself not to reach down to your concealed ankle knife, but the urge to just take it out and slash him grew by the second.</p><p>Not wanting to start a bloody mess on the papers in front of you however, you were just starting to consider at least breaking your silence and throwing a few choice insults his way after all, when a familiar sound of footsteps entering the room behind the two of you finally brought you the comforting feeling of Jerome having just walked in. Your shoulders unclenched as your head snapped back down.</p><p>
  <em>Oh thank god!</em>
</p><p>“Eh? You know what they say, sweets?“ he repeated, clearly completely oblivious to the sudden danger he found himself in. Because if there was one thing that Jerome absolutely could not stand, it was when any guy tried to even get remotely close to you. After all the years of having to watch the creeps your mother tended to hook up with and having to endure their torture and taunts whenever he was around, Jerome got very easily triggered by men who reminded him of Lila’s past boyfriends even in the slightest. These kinds of men may have managed to corrupt his mother, but they were not going to get you, his favorite sibling, the only one who had ever loved him and accepted him for who he was and secretly always had his back during his rough child hood. So you knew you were finally safe, the moment Jerome had appeared. A wicked grin slowly appeared on your face, one very much like Jerome’s, suddenly making the resemblance between you and your brother unmistakable.</p><p>
  <em>Oh this would be fun.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Clearly thinking he finally caught your attention successfully, Darryl proceeded to try to continue with his cliche pick-up line "… They say -“ Well, what it was exactly that this disgusting pig thought he knew about red-heads, you never found out, because before he could finish his sentence, he was roughly grabbed by the shoulder and slammed down hard onto the chair standing next to him. Keeping an insanely tight grip on him with one of his white, gloved hands, Jerome quickly moved dangerously close to your tormentors face from behind, taking out his pocket knife with the other hand as he did so. “<em>Darrrryyylll</em>…. What did I tell you about harassing my sister?“ he asked with a seemingly pleasant voice and a very bright smile on his face, yet clearly implying impending death with each word that he spoke. Jerome forced the man to look at him with the gloved hand that was gripping his shoulder, twisting him towards him in his seat, a dangerous smile on his scarred face, still remaining relatively calm like he was just going to have a casual conversation with the guy, but his eyes started to go darker with anger the longer he looked at him. Darryl started to shrink in his seat under Jerome’s now slightly-manic glare, desperately trying to come up with a good excuse, but the impending wrath of your brother suddenly seemed to have made it very hard for him to find the right words.“Huh?" Jerome asked again, moving even closer to his face, giving his shoulder a rough squeeze, and, when he still received no satisfying answer, just a few stammers, he finally let the blade of his knife snap out. He moved it up to Darryl’s face, looking at the man inquiringly.</p><p>You were watching this scene unfold in front of you with delight, finally that jerk got what was coming to him. “…nnnottttto dddo itttanymoreee?“ Darryl finally managed to tremulously let out, fearfully looking at the tall red-head still bend very closely down to his face. Despite his ire, Jerome started to enjoy the sight of the terrified man shaking beneath him, and, though his hate-filled eyes were exclusively focused on the scum squirming in front of him (as much as this was possible for the guy with the impossibly tight grip that Jerome had him on by now), he was very well aware that you were watching him defend you with glee, so he finally burst out laughing, which made the smile on your own face only that much bigger, and the look in your eyes that much darker, knowing what was about to happen. “Ah Darryl… we understand each other, right?“ The anger in Jerome’s voice seemed to have suddenly disappeared completely as he finally let go of the man’s shoulder and instead put that arm around him, acting all chummy, all while waving the blade of his knife in front of the guy’s face. The man shakily nodded, not quite sure whether to keep Jerome’s face or the blade in his sight. “Then let’s not let my sister -“  - he made a nod into your direction while pointing with his knife -  “- get between us - “ - he pointed the knife at Darryl and himself, Darryl not letting it out of his sight - “- from now on, and <em>just</em> - <em>keep</em> - <em>working!</em>“ Jerome cheerily finished, while tapping the man’s thigh with his knife during the last three words of his sentence. “What d'ya say?“ he then asked as if he actually gave him an option. A still quaking Darryl quickly nodded his agreement, making Jerome laugh out loud again.</p><p>Finally removing his arm from the guy and walking around to stand right front of him, Jerome’s scarred face suddenly went completely dark again as he grabbed Darryl by the front of his shirt and roughly pulled him very close up to his face one last time, poking him in the cheek with his knife as he did so, blood instantly starting to trickle down the man’s face. “Don’t ever talk to her again, buddy!“ He said, and this time, there was no hint of cheerfulness, real or fake, in Jerome’s voice, just plain danger. “Got it?“ The insane glare in Jerome’s eyes was suddenly back too and he kept it up with the man for a few seconds. Then, apparently quite unexpectedly for Darryl, based on his violent flinch when it happened, Jerome swiftly let go of the man’s shirt to move away from him for good, and went to leave. Your face suddenly fell.</p><p>
  <em>That was it?</em>
</p><p>Jerome’s sudden, mature calmness surprised you, you had expected him to proceed to slicing up the man’s throat now, but instead, your brother actually calmly put the blade of his knife away and pocketed it as he walk past you out of the room, not even looking at you.<em>"What the hell</em>?" you thought, looking after Jerome in surprise, who seemed completely oblivious to your outrage at letting the man just get away with this. Darryl, meanwhile, remained frozen in his seat, still too shaken from this unpleasant encounter with Jerome, just staring after him.</p><p> </p><p>“… Actually, on second thought -“ Jerome suddenly stopped in his tracks, unexpectedly drew his gun, turned around and blew the guy’s brains out. Blood splattered all across the papers as Darryl’s lifeless body dropped onto the table. “Jerome, I was <em>trying</em> to keep those clean!“ you exclaimed. “And, by the way, you’re welcome!“ was his only response as he walked back over to you, tucking away his gun and kicking the dead body off the chair. Taking a seat, Jerome now grinned at you proudly, he knew god damn well you weren’t mad at him at all. And of course, with the source of your tension finally gone, your face couldn’t help but start to light up again as well. You were looking at him, sitting there, being all proud of himself, suddenly giving you a flash-back of what he was like as a kid. This sight of him led to you letting out a little snort of laughter, and, shaking your head, you walked over to him, then playfully grabbed your brother’s chin with your right hand.</p><p>Your much smaller frame was bending down to his face to look him directly in the eyes, pretending to go into lecturing-big-sister-mode, while Jerome, straightening up in his chair, likewise pretended to shift into innocent-little-brother-mode, looking up at you intently, still very fiercely reminding you of a little kid. “You know, honey, you gonna keep doing that, you’re not gonna have anyone left to help you!“ reminding him with that of the fact that this was actually the 4th of his Arkham low-lifes he’d murdered over the last two days just for bothering you. You let go of his chin to lightly slap his cheek twice lovingly with your gloved hand, straightening up again, wanting to get back to work. Jerome just proudly flashed you another one of his signature grins, a manic, joyful gleam appearing in his eyes, as he proclaimed: “<em>No one</em> messes with my big sis!“ And with that, he jumped up again, actually proceeded to plant a kiss onto your temple, and skipped back out of the room, bursting into loud laughter again as he went.</p>
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